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Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Enemy at the Gates

(This post originally appeared on January 26, 2009.)I try to catch most of the World War II movies but missed this one when it came out. A young Russian soldier (Jude Law) becomes a sniper during the siege of Stalingrad and demoralizes the Germans so much that they bring in a sharpshooter of their own, an aristocrat played by Ed Harris. Most of the movie is a tense duel between the two as they try to get a clear shot at each other, but there's also a little romance and some philosophizing as well. This is a grim and gritty but intelligent thriller. It's also a rather old-fashioned movie that's staged and edited so that the viewer can actually tell what's going on. ENEMY AT THE GATES is a well-made, involving film, and I liked it a lot.

In my opinion, this movie catches a lot of undeserved flack. Yeah, there are a few bits to it that are cliches, but for a WW2 movie, it is pretty darn solid. The opening shots of the boats packed with men crossing the river as they're getting shelled and strafed, and the scenes where they're handing rifles to only half the men because they know how high the casualties will be, are pretty great. Also good to see some cool sniping/stalking moments throughout the film, actually paying attention to fieldcraft.